Happy National Day to all the Swedish Playbook readers, and happy Constitution Day for yesterday to all the Danes out there!

BRUSSELS GLAMOR QUOTA JUST WENT UP: Panti Bliss, the Irish performer, marriage equality campaigner and drag queen (and member of the POLITICO 28) will be in Brussels this month. She’s headlining the European Equality Gala on June 29. Here’s a taste of Bliss’s powerful advocacy. VIDEO | You can get tickets here.

BRUSSELS CENTER — VIDEO SIMULATION OF PLANNED PEDESTRIAN TRANSFORMATION: No timeline attached, but an impressive upgrade compared to the temporary facilities trialed since September 2015. http://bit.ly/1U2cx1A

BELGIUM — DEADLY TRAIN CRASH: A passenger train crashed into the back of a freight train in the Saint-Georges-Sur-Meuse municipality late Sunday, killing three people and injuring 40. http://bit.ly/1stNxqY

GERMANY — MERKEL COMPARED TO HITLER BY TURKISH NEWSPAPERS:Click here for the photoshopped Merkel in the Star Gazetesi, after the German parliament (excluding Merkel, who wasn’t there) voted to classify the 1915 mass killings of Armenians as genocide, something the EU has so far shied away from. http://politi.co/1Y1qrnl

** A message from the EPP Group: The countdown for UEFA European Championship starts and the European Parliament meets in Strasbourg. This week, we examine how the European Fund for Strategic Investments supports growth and job creation, address the root causes of the migration crisis and set up a Panama Papers inquiry committee to fight tax evasion. #bringingresults**

SPAIN — INSIDE THE PODEMOS ELECTORAL WAR MACHINE: Three weeks before Spaniards vote for the second time in six months, the far-left protest Podemos party is poised to shake up if not yet replace the establishment it was founded to oppose. The star of the party is Pablo Iglesias, the 37-year-old, ponytailed university lecturer, its co-founder and leader. “Doing politics for real is doing politics inside TV sets and in the newspapers. They’re much more important than parliaments,” says Iglesias. Diego Torres charts the rise of Pablo Iglesias as a consummate politician: http://politi.co/1Uln59k

ITALY’S LOCAL ELECTIONS: 13 million Italians were eligible to vote for their mayors Sunday in cities such as Rome, Milan, Turin, Bologne and Naples. Turnout was higher than expected. Latest figures here: http://bit.ly/1VGPZG1

Renzi pre-emptively downplayed the results on Friday. Speaking at a Naples rally, Renzi said “the electoral campaign will be important not for the government but for the cities.” But it’s an undeniable test of momentum as Renzi heads towards a referendum on his electoral reforms in October. ANSA http://bit.ly/1WANyWJ

ROMANIA — ELECTION PITTED THREE MEN WITH SAME NAME AGAINST EACH OTHER:Vasile Cepoi took on Vasile Cepoi, Vasile Cepoi and someone whose name isn’t Vasile Cepoi. Political scientists said it could be a tactic by rival parties to split the strongest candidate’s vote. Vince Chadwick and Carmen Paun http://politi.co/1TVyYIU

POLAND — KACZYŃSKI QUOTE DU JOUR: “A state governed by law is not necessarily a democratic one. For us, the people are sovereign.” http://bit.ly/1UsbK75

FINLAND’S COMPETITIVENESS PACT: Prime Minister Juha Sipilä blogged late Friday night that “Finland made history today,” after concluding a deal between government, business leaders and unions to lift the country’s competitiveness. PM’s blog | YLE

SWISS REJECT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME OF €2,250 PER MONTH IN REFERENDUM: Swiss have voted overwhelmingly not to adopt a government-funded stipend that would be paid out regardless of a recipient’s income, as a replacement for existing patchwork welfare benefits. Reuters http://reut.rs/1VGtUrc

FREDRIK REINFELDT ON BUILDING A ‘WORK FIRST’ SOCIETY: Playbook sat down with former Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who argues we need to re-understand and rebuild our labor markets. There are 12 elements on the Reinfeldt Initiative (co-authored by Eva Uddén Sonnegård). One pager | Full report

Policy for all: Reinfeldt says we should design labor market policies for everyone, not just those in and looking for work. Doing that starts with new labor market statistics, he says, because those we currently have don’t tell us who isn’t participating and why, which dramatically reduces our ability to get them back into work.

The big turn: “There is a higher participation rate for women until 25. Then their numbers twist and never recover again. It’s because of the pressure of taking care of the people around them. We need to talk openly about it to incentivize [other behavior].”

Rolling reform, not ‘anger management:’ Reinfeldt is frustrated that tough reforms, if they are sold to the electorate at all, are sold as crisis solutions and temporary pain rather than as a basic operating requirement for European economies. Instead of having a rolling conversation of what to reform next, politicians are reducing themselves to policies of “anger management,” which won’t be enough to cope with “change from many sources. Digital, automation, migration, aging population.”

Reaching out: ”Can’t we look a bit more at incentives and motivation, be more positive? It’s important to look at the human side, and answer: How do we increase skills and mobility, motivate you?”

Saving the center: Reinfeldt calls for socialists and others to join him: “There’s no one, single political color who can do this [alone].” If anything, Reinfeldt’s work is the latest contribution to saving the political center. And to show it is worth saving, while competing against demagogues and other purveyors of easy solutions, that center is becoming an increasingly radical one.

MIGRATION — CYPRUS SIDELINED AS EU SCRAMBLES TO SAVE TURKEY DEAL: The European Commission has put new pressure on Cyprus in a bid to meet Turkish demands for quicker integration into the Brussels lawmaking machine, writes Justin Stares. “After convincing Nicosia earlier this year to soften its opposition to Ankara’s EU membership bid in order to secure a deal with Turkey on stemming the flow of refugees into Europe, the Commission is now reviving long-frozen Turkish requests for participation in European rule-making bodies on issues such as maritime safety and industrial standards certification.” http://politi.co/1t04Csl

CAMERON’S SURVIVAL GUIDE: With less than three weeks to go until polling day, Cameron’s Conservative Party is in open revolt, sparking concern among his supporters that he will be unable to regain control even if he wins. Most observers believe Cameron’s only chance of remaining in Number 10 is to win the referendum — and win it big, reports Tom McTague. http://politi.co/1UCmu5O

FORMER PM MAJOR: ‘I’M ANGRY AT THE WAY THE BRITISH PEOPLE ARE BEING MISLED.’ John Major has hit out at “inaccurate information known to be inaccurate” being spread by the “squalid” and “deceitful campaign” of the Brexiteers. He says Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and others deliberately overstate by three times the net contribution British taxpayers make to the EU budget. The campaign group InFacts says the Leave leaders made 18 errors in a recent letter to David Cameron. VIDEO: http://bit.ly/1U2ecUT

JOHNSON RESPONDS:“If you tell people you can cut immigration to the tens of thousands but are then legally unable to do that, then it is frustrating and people want an answer.”

PARTY LEADERS RESPOND: David Cameron will join together with Harriet Harman (Labour), Tim Farron (Liberal Democrats) and Natalie Bennett (Greens) today to label the Leave campaign’s economic messages a “con-trick” on the British people. That sounds like a word a committee makes up, but we get the point.

FACEBOOK NUDGE HELPS TRIPLE UNDER 55 VOTER REGISTRATION: We can’t prove it, but look at these figures. The day Facebook prompted U.K. voters to make sure they were registered to vote, the number of completed registrations tripled from around 65,000 to around 180,000. http://politi.co/1WB9AZb

EUROPE’S LOBBYISTS BANK ON BREXIT: Businesses from mom-and-pop size to multinationals have warned that a British decision to quit the EU’s single market will devastate their bottom line, but there’s one industry that’s ready to make a killing: lobbying. Tara Palmeri: http://politi.co/1O9GEFd

NEIGHBORS TO UK — ‘PLEASE STAY:’ A TNS poll of citizens of nine EU countries finds that each country wants the U.K. to stay in the EU, with between 62 and 79 percent in favor of Remain. http://politi.co/1PxHAUf

PLAYBOOK HEARS … The French government thinks highly of Theresa May, the dark horse in the race to succeed David Cameron. Playbook’s source says “Everyone [at the Council table] listens carefully when she speaks. She is tough but clear. Very influential. Predictability matters.”

COMMISSION SAYS LOVE THY NEIGHBORS — BUT KEEP OUT OF THE YARD! The Commission is planning to announce Tuesday a “European External Investment Fund” modeled financially on the European Fund for Strategic Investment (a.k.a. the Juncker Investment Plan), and modeled politically on the EU-Turkey migration deal. The plans look at how to reengineer relations with countries such as Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Niger and Ethiopia, and push to link financial help to African countries with stronger commitments to control their borders and agreements to take back refugees, reports Jacopo Barigazzi http://politi.co/1r9ddIb. The FT reports the new fund will be worth €60 billion. Playbook’s senior source says the draft plan continued to change over the weekend.

WHY THE PLAN KEEPS CHANGING: Playbook’s sources say there is internal debate in the Commission about whether there can be too much of a good thing, in this case the leverage finance of the Juncker Investment Plan/EFSI that is set to be applied to challenges in Africa. The debate is so sensitive that those with copies of it “had to sign in blood for it” my source joked.

On the advantage of spreading the Juncker Plan globally: It’s now a proven way to use the EU to address expensive problems, because there would be no political support for more than seed money.

The cons: This new plan would replace yet more EU instruments and lock the Commission into working with the European Investment Bank. As for the €60 billion figure, Playbook’s source doubts that much can be conjured up after Kristalina Georgieva spent most of last year scraping the barrel for every last cent to throw at the refugee crisis.

COUNCIL — Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meets today and tomorrow in Brussels.

FRANCE — AIRLINES CALL FOR EU-WIDE TRAFFIC CONTROL TO STOP FRENCH STRIKE DISRUPTION: Ryanair, easyJet, British Airways’ owner IAG, Lufthansa and others, will lobby the EU to allow air traffic controllers from France’s neighboring countries to manage French skies during strikes, the Guardian reports: http://bit.ly/1t06oK6

FRANCE — HOLLANDE SAYS STRIKES MUST NOT DISRUPT EURO: “No one would understand it if trains and planes — I’m thinking of the Air France pilots’ dispute — were to prevent fans travelling around easily, even if the competition itself has nothing to fear,” Hollande said on France Inter radio. http://reut.rs/1O9Ieqq

US — MICHELLE OBAMA UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT SPEECH: At the City College of New York, which educates students of more than 150 nationalities (a storied history of inclusion, “a place where students didn’t have to hide their last name,” and home to 10 Nobel prize-winners), Michelle Obama gave a knockout speech. Worth watching if you have 10 minutes. VIDEO (it ramps up from the five minute mark): http://bit.ly/1TQ3MWb

US — HOW PAID PUNDITRY WORKS: The Washington Post Magazine’s cover this weekend was the story of how, from low-grade (Meghan McCain) to A-list (Karl Rove or David Axelrod), pundits can be paid between $150 per appearance to a six-figure retainer to keep the news cycle spinning. http://wapo.st/1Y9rMZv

US 2016 — CLINTON NOW A HANDFUL OF DELEGATES FROM NOMINATION: Hillary Clinton needs just a few dozen delegates out of 835 still up for grabs to secure the Democratic nomination. Sunday she scored a clean sweep of elected and superdelegates from U.S. Virgin Islands, and won Puerto Rico with about 60 percent of the vote.

Including party officials and elected leaders (‘superdelegates’) Clinton is now virtually unbeatable. If those superdelegates are excluded, this analysis from FiveThirtyEight shows that Clinton needs around 220 more ‘pledged’ delegates from ordinary voters to gain an absolutely majority of those elected delegates. She is set to achieve this Tuesday as California and other states vote. Associated Press: http://apne.ws/24rO4FF

US 2016 — THE NEW CLINTON TACTIC IS TO REPEAT TRUMP’S OWN WORDS: Instead of stretching and twisting Trump’s words, Clinton now merely repeats them, creating drama out of simplicity. Trump called the delivery of her major Friday speech terrible, but a Clinton video released over the weekend shows why the style was unusual. It was meant to be cut up into internet memes, GIFs and other short video clips. Whatever you think of the content, it’s hard not to see the style spreading to other election campaigns across the U.S. and globally. VIDEO: http://bit.ly/1U2K3ou

Trump’s reaction was to call for Clinton to be sent to jail: “She has to go to jail — has to go!” http://nyti.ms/1Uo65is

MAKE SLOVENIA GREAT AGAIN! THE SLOVENIANS FOR TRUMP: Melania Trump is a possible bridge to the White House for fledgling right-wing movements in Europe and a mayor keen to attract foreign investment to the town she was raised in. Amie Ferris-Rotman http://politi.co/1stkfJ9

FOR YOUR BOOKSHELF — ‘Old Cold War warrior’ imagines war with Russia: Retired British general and former NATO deputy commander General Sir Richard Shirreff imagines a blow-by-blow of Russia’s invasion of the Baltic States in May 2017, and the nuclear Armageddon it unleashes. http://politi.co/1VGJxPs

ARRIVED: New Italian permanent representative to the EU Maurizio Massari is now in his post.

DIED:Muhammad Ali at 74. President Bill Clinton will deliver the eulogy at his funeral Friday. Time has published a special issue this morning commemorating Ali’s life. See the cover:http://ti.me/1TOWWjK. The controversial Northern League MEP Gianluca Buonanno, 50, died Sunday afternoon in a car accident. http://bit.ly/25FW3Bu

**A message from the EPP Group: Dairy farmers’ situation is becoming increasingly more difficult. Our Chairman Manfred Weber thinks Europe must help, but not with money alone. Trading companies have too much power, while farmers have hardly any influence. Dairies pay less than 40 cents, which means that, after the cost of transportation and processing, farmers get as little as 25 cents for milking their cows 365 days a year, morning and evening. We must reverse this imbalance. Here’s what we think fair trade for farmers should look like. #agricrisis**